Apple and Qualcomm are back in the headlines and this time for completely different reasons. Apple today filed a patent royalty lawsuit against Qualcomm, alleging the firm failed to pay the owed rebates in retaliation for Apple’s part in Korean Antitrust Investigation.

Apple Accuses Qualcomm as Monopolist

In its lawsuit, Apple alleges Qualcomm withheld nearly $1 Billion in payments retaliation for cooperating with law enforcement agencies. Apply cites that the Korean Fair Trade Commission’s probe into the Qualcomm business practices that resulted in an $854 million fine in December which is the largest in the agency’s history. Since 2011, Qualcomm has conditioned billions of dollars in rebates on “exclusivity” or de facto exclusivity from Apple.

According to the rumors, Apple has filed a case against Qualcomm citing that the leading chip-making brand is overcharging them for chips and has refused to pay a rebate of $1 Billion which they had promised earlier. A few days ago, the government of United States of America brought the charge against Qualcomm which states that they are trying to bring a policy which would enable them to monopolize their business and make the market completely anti-competitive.

Qualcomm is a major supplier to both Apple and Samsung Co Ltd in order to get modern chips that can connect phones to wireless networks. Both the companies together accounted for 40 percent of Qualcomm’s $23.5 billion in revenue in its most recent fiscal year. Apple has been actively encouraging regulatory attacks on Qualcomm’s business in different jurisdictions around the world. It also accused Qualcomm of selling chips while requiring Apple to pay a separate licensing fee for the same chips in a “no license”, no chip” policy.

The KFTC fined Qualcomm $854 million in December for what it is called unfair patent licensing practicing. In February 2015, Qualcomm paid about $975 million fine in China while the European Union in December 2015 accused it of abusing its market power to thwart rivals. Qualcomm has been the chief supplier to Apple for the chipsets that come with their smartphones. Recently, Apple came out of

Recently, Apple came out of alliance, Samsung did as well but they are now back in allegiance for the production of the latest flagship device they have already launched. But as it stands now things are poised in the balance and we might come across an interesting session of punches and counter-punches between two of the most popular brands in the world of technology.